Business Leaders Dance to Trump's Tune
Plus, Robinhood pushes the envelope again on private share trading & OpenAI opens the kimono on ChatGPT usage
The Week in Short
Business leaders cave to Trump at their peril. Eric and co-host Nayeema Raza break down the hottest policy and longevity takes from Deus Ex Medicina on the podcast. Robinhood is on a roll, but it’s no VC. What people really do with ChatGPT. Figure, a humanoid robot, leads hardware funding flurry. Modest Stubhub IPO suggests fever is cooling. Intel & Nvidia in a forced embrace. Salesforce hits AI headwinds. The UAE chip deal has ugly hair on it.
The Main Item
The Trump Trade Is Ethically Bankrupt & Riskier Than it Seems. It’s Time to Sell.
In business and media, Donald Trump is going to be as powerful as we let him be.
Unfortunately, if people like Bob Iger and David Ellison have their way, it would seem that Trump and the US government agencies that he’s turned into his political attack dogs — notably the Federal Communications Commission — are going to be extremely powerful indeed.
They can ice comedians they don’t like — first Steven Colbert, and now Jimmy Kimmel. They can drive changes to the editorial policies of 60 Minutes and Face the Nation, extract money from media companies that need a merger approval, and force the carriage of programming that helps them politically, like Charlie Kirk memorials.
The strategy depends on comfortable, wealthy elites shrugging their shoulders and letting the bully on the playground continue to terrorize anyone he pleases. So far, so good.
We think it’s flawed reasoning on multiple levels for business leaders to go along with Trump’s revanchism and lawlessness.
As a matter of personal and professional ethics, we’re quite surprised that people with plenty of means who have climbed to the summit of corporate power have opted to grovel at Trump’s feet. We understand that he represents a real threat to their business interests. But as the priceless line from Billions goes, “what’s the point of having fuck-you money if you never say fuck you?”
In addition to regaining their scruples, investors and CEOs ought to be giving a little more thought to the likelihood that Democrats will hold power again one day, and they won’t be the old, spineless kind. Trump can wave away concerns about the legality of the actions, but government coercion for political ends and complicity in corrupt acts remain crimes nonetheless, and will be a fair target for future prosecutors.
We’re surprised that we haven’t seen a Democratic version of Founders Fund emerge. Peter Thiel played Trump shrewdly, backing him early and loudly the first time around to win the President’s favor, then staying away from engaging in the chaotic first term and reaping the rewards for his early move in the second.
Thiel is open about his disdain for democracy, so it shouldn’t be hard to position on the other side without appearing too lefty. But so far even Democrats like Reid Hoffman, Ron Conway, and Garry Tan seem to be keeping their heads down.
We’re happy to be in independent media at this charged moment in history. We don’t have to pretend that any of this is normal, as the big media orgs where we’ve worked in the past have tacitly required.
This is not a politics newsletter and we’re eager to get back to the business of writing about entrepreneurs and investors. But a very dark cloud is looming over our country. Trump’s authoritarianism is warping the behavior of otherwise rational and well-meaning tech industry leaders, not to mention regular citizens. We have to talk about it.
Newcomer Podcast
What Mattered Most at Deus Ex Medicina
In this week’s episode of the Newcomer Podcast, journalist and filmmaker Nayeema Raza joins us to dive into the highlights from Deus Ex Medicina and unpack the promises and pitfalls of health tech.
Some themes we explore: Why America’s healthcare system leaves people needlessly suffering, the hype (and hope) around GLP-1s and new treatments, what RFK Jr.’s health movement means for research and policy, and whether or not HIPAA is already a thing of the past.